


Chariot du Nord is wearing a tracksuit

by vyroj



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Pre-Slash, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vyroj/pseuds/vyroj
Summary: ...and it hurts more than it should.





	Chariot du Nord is wearing a tracksuit

Shiny Chariot is wearing a corset, cut away to reveal miles of pale skin from neck to navel. Her boots are heeled, her stockings are thigh high, and her skirt is scandalous.

Diana Cavendish is wearing an open-mouthed grin, her hands clasped in front of her in enrapturement. The stage's glow washes the crowd in blue, as if they are but the backdrop and only her and Chariot star the show.

In her corset, she waves her Shiny Rod, and a wave cascades over them, blotting the sky with ink and light. Through its deep depths dives a mermaid, and on its bubbling surface gallops a centaur. It's the first time magic has ever been truly magical for Diana, the first time magic wasn't laced with sharp words and heavy expectations, the first time magic felt like something more than a tool. She's floating, awe and joy bubbling out of her chest in the shape of a dancing blue pixie, and Diana thinks to herself that she might not ever see something again as breathtaking as Chariot du Nord's red cape billowing against the starry sky.

Bernadette Cavendish is wearing a gown, draped to swaddle her from head to toe. Her wrists are frail, her eyes are dull, and her words are thin. She passes on her legacy, and flesh and bone decay between satin sheets.

Pressed against her shoulder, Diana notices the beginning of fraying in the robe's puffy upper seams, worn threads just starting to separate and pop out. The fit, too, isn't perfect; it's obviously been tailored, but not for any modicum of fashion. It's just a gown, meant to cover one's body for the day.

The fuzzy cloth is starting to make Diana sweat, and she wishes that Bernadette Cavendish had worn bell bottom sleeves.

 

 

The ballroom is blinding, flooded with wax and polish and silver and glass, and Diana's calves twitch and quiver in their too tall shoes. Her cousins strut in front of her, just as dazzling as their surroundings, with glittering coats and feathered wraps.

Diana herself is wearing a combination of pale white dress and jacket that keeps her elbows and knees covered. In an inner pocket over her left breast, courtesy of Anna, Chariot's card burns. Temptation winning over, she slips it out just enough to peek at the front.

Maryl notices immediately and slaps her elbow hard enough to sting. "Put that _away_ ," she hisses as if concerned, although her glassy blue eyes burn with mockery, protectiveness of the family's reputation and want to humiliate battling within.

Diana ignores her, squinting down at the printed graphics, and then at the endless walls of antiqued dresses and classical suits.

Now Meryl steps closer. Diana slides her scrutinizing gaze over the both of them, and then back at Chariot. The pattern and material and cuts are all different, of course, but the _shape_ , the _outline_ , the _cleavage_... Sourness bites at the pit of her stomach.

The next day she locks the card away for good, and her denim riding jacket has a high collar.

 

 

For the second time in her life, her breath is gone.

The healing halls are vast, a little on the stout side, perhaps, but huge enough to comfortably harbor hundreds upon hundreds of needy, each medical table once stocked with herbs and gauze and manned with magic. Hundreds upon hundreds were kept safe here, and hundreds upon hundreds were saved. Standing in the middle of the hall, Diana can almost see what the Cavendish house once was, the lines of blonde and tea green heads attentively bent over each soul.

The library is just as awe inspiring, centuries of knowledge packed into books small and large. It quickly becomes a home for Diana, a place to hide when the dazzle and dust becomes too much for her.

It isn't till nearly a week later, though, that Diana finds the room, taking a break from a particularly bulky tome to rub her blurry eyes and identify the faint outline of a door on the cobwebbed far wall.

She sets her book down carefully and cautiously makes her way over, mindful not to step on the assortment of insect life that populates the flooring. A quick wave of her wand expels the excess webbing, and, finding the door without a lock, she carefully opens it and peeks in.

A murmured light spell reveals racks upon racks of degrading clothing: the once clean robes past used to provide a more sterile environment for both the Cavendish and their patients. Curiosity unabating, Diana steps forward to examine them more closely, only to jerk back in surprise, her head slamming against the still open door.

Is...

Is that a corset?

 

 

Diana is wearing a long sleeved white shirt, a navy tunic, a tie, and knee-high boots, and she is one amongst many. While in their off time some find ways to skirt the style with boxers and loose tanks, during school hours, even Amanda O'Neill dons the uniform.

The teachers, too, wear garments reminiscent of the old, and Diana quickly discovers that the wooden carvings and stone arches and creaky desks reek of stagnated tradition. It's all too easy, Diana finds, to make _herself_ reek of stagnated tradition too, to be considered safe, to gather a posse of girls who have the straight not-pigeon-not-duck-toed walk down to a millimeter, to strut down the halls with arched backs and dainty sniffs. She isn't even sure that she had to make herself this way, maybe it was just always there, the blood of the Cavendish ready beneath her pores.

Atsuko Kagari is wearing a miniskirt (minitunic?).

Diana has to blink once, twice, for it to register how non-regulation that length of fabric it is, but somehow, nobody else comments on it, and somehow, neither can she.

 

 

Atsuko Kagari is a mouse, and then a flying elephant, and then herself again, and by then Vajarois's tears have dried.

Before that, she's but a girl in a scuffed-up uniform, nose still smudged with dirt, and she looks at Diana with a fiery gaze that leaves her speechless. She's still speechless, standing in the outskirts of the stage and feeling just a little too voyeuristic as she watches Akko embrace her friends. This would be the... third time, wouldn't it?

But this time it wasn't grandeur that had taken her breath away; it wasn't the flicker of red or scent of paper and ink; it was something far more childish. Joyful. The cartoony outline of a circus animal, complete with a ridiculous little ponytail, spat on a galore of friends and enemies alike, guffawing at their frilled jackets and rebellious neck lines.

Later, as Atsuko Kagari screams of bourgeois and aristocrats, there's a tightening in Diana's chest that goes beyond simple irritation. When the subject presses her challenging glare upwards, Diana comes face to face with the word "Unity," and wonders how Atsuko Kagari can dare peddle "Unity" when she makes Diana feel so left behind.

 

 

Croix Meridies is wearing a red cape, but it doesn't look tacky. It looks bold, dashing, and when the imposing figure sweeps into the room, Diana can see stars behind it. But Croix is more than a circus act, she's a prodigy, an innovator, a genius. As outlandish as her sorcery units may appear, they're irritatingly practical, and the same goes for the rest of her gadgets and systems.

Still, it's a little bittersweet, having that red cape suddenly be acceptable _now_.

 

 

Atsuko Kagari is wearing a dress, for the second time, as it happens, but this time it's one of _Diana's_ , and it's quaint and high belted and Diana can remember pulling it on one hot summer day many years ago, though the pink hadn't complimented her hair color quite as well.

The dress covers her knees.

It's a bothersome dress to look at, really, that belt is just _too_ high, even Anna must be able to tell. But a little quirk in the Earl of Hanbridge's brow eases at the sight of it, so she can ignore the dress's various flaws for the promotion of peace. It makes her a little less grating, too. Of course, she still brings up or acts out her various grievances and annoyances, but the dress reduces them back to what they are. After all, there's a _structure_ to Diana's life, and she would be remiss not to place Akko somewhere within it. Yes, now that Atsuko Kagari finally has a place, a pattern, everything will be much easier to handle.

Yet, somehow, she's still... emotional, when she sees the oft-enthusiastic girl lying still and prone on the floor, and moved, when those shining red eyes look at her with such faith, and peaceful, when it registers that the pink dress is long gone.

 

 

The white robes aren't bad though.

             

 

Akko is wearing a miniskirt (miniskirt), and it's dyed fluorescent pink, and Diana is certain that if she went any lower she'd catch sight of panties of the same color.

"Well?" She asks, voice and eyes soaked with their usual intensity of emotion: in this moment, playfulness. Akko, Diana must admit, is quite unique in that regard, in the way that her feelings can inspire so much change in others. It's a miracle that Manbavaran and Yanson made it through the school year intact, relatively speaking.

Not that it isn't anything but a simple game of dress up, really, a pile of colored cloths arranged in different shapes and forms and a mirror to stare vainly into. It’s just another diversion, something that Diana has been dealing with in unfortunate quantities as of late, given her newfound--

Akko bends sharply over, and her skirt flutters in and her shirt flutters down and Diana can only pry her eyes off the taut sweep of pink long enough to note that their lips are within a distance. _"Well?"_

“…shit.”

 


End file.
